From the punky Spanish guitar of opening track 'Phantom Limb', 'The Crooked Mile' is an album seemingly designed to surprise and I’m happy to say that it does not disappoint. The album is a brooding, menacing piece defying pigeonholing by virtue of a variety of genre exercises each one of which executed with flair and sincerity.

Birdengine is Lawry Joseph Tilbury, and, after two successful EPs and a mini-album, 'The Crooked Mile' is his first full-length album. Multi-instrumentalist Tilbury plays almost all of the instruments on the album (the exceptions are 'Phantom Limb', 'The Experiments of Dr Sarconi' and 'No Arms and No Friends' where he has enlisted the assistance of drummers Tom Marsh and Danny Green, and, on 'No Arms and No Friends', where he is assisted by producer David Ringland on electric guitar).

After the up-tempo opening, second track 'I, Dancing Bear' is a pared down polka featuring Tilbury accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and overdubbed harmonies, its fragility emphasising the general mood of menace prevalent throughout the album. 'No Arms and No Friends' sounds like a semi-acoustic collaboration between Nirvana and the Vaselines while 'Ghost Club', with its toy box introduction and eerie air, could easily be lifted from a Tom Waits or Thomas Truax album.

For me, the highlight of the album is 'Scarecrow and the Longpig', featuring hushed acoustic guitar and ethereal harmonies. It’s a particularly effective and evocative sonic snapshot which I fell in love with instantly. The album closes with 'Make Happy', and, while it is one of the more upbeat tracks, I suspect that the title is being employed somewhat ironically.

I felt that 'The Crooked Mile' had a dream-like quality to it, almost like the music and especially Tilbury’s ominous timbre is leaking through from some surreal netherworld. Tilbury’s vocals are something of an acquired taste and certainly won’t appeal to everyone at the first listen, but the more one listens to his songs, the more one realises how well-suited his delivery is to the material. Unlike many of today’s musicians, there is a definite Birdengine sound which runs through the material providing an artery of cohesion even when two or more disparate songs are juxtaposed.